SOURCING TWO ADENA STONE TUBE PIPES FROM PIG POINT (18AN50)
Al Luckenbach
The excavated fragments of two different Adena
style stone tube pipes (Figures 1 and 2) from the Pig Point
site continued a string of surprising discoveries at this rich
locality which seem to indicate some sort of connection
with the mound-building cultures of the Midwest. Previous
finds have included a Hopewell style spear point made of
Flint Ridge chalcedony quarried in eastern Ohio (Figure
3), and a rolled copper bead (Figure 4) made in the Adena
style (Matt McKnight, personal communication, 2011).
Less unequivocal, but still intriguing, were a number of
recovered artifacts such as fossil sharks teeth, marginella
beads, drilled canines, a platform pipe fragment (Figures 5
and 6), and a prismatic blade fragment, which would not
be out of place if they were excavated in Ohio contexts
from roughly 500 B.C. to A.D. 500.
The tube pipes from Pig Point are made of what is
variously called “pipestone,” “flint-clay,” or “fire-clay.” This
material is composed mainly of kaolinite and other plastic
clay minerals. The presence of hematite in the Minnesota
varieties produces the red color known as “catlinite,”
famous for its heavy exploitation by Native American
groups, especially for pipes. When freshly quarried, all
pipestone is soft and easily worked, but after exposure to
air it hardens quite significantly.
FIGURE 2. Interior of Adena tube pipes from Pig Point
showing tool marks.
FIGURE 3. Hopewell point from Pig Point made of Flint
FIGURE 1. Exterior of Adena tube pipes from Pig Point
Ridge (Ohio) chalcedony.
(longer specimen is 2.1 inches).
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
MARYLAND ARCHEOLOGY, Volume 47(1):28-30, March 2011
28
Volume 47(1), March 2011
29
FIGURE 6. Stone platform pipe fragment (1.25 inches)
from Pig Point.
FIGURE 4. Adena copper bead (0.25 inches) from Pig
Point.
FIGURE 5. Examples of fossil shark teeth, drilled canines,
and marginella beads from Pig Point (larger shark tooth is
1.75 inches).
Recently, through the kindness of Dr. Tom
Emerson and Dr. Sarah Wisseman of the Illinois State
Archaeological Survey and the University of Illinois, the
original quarry source of the Pig Point stone pipes was
determined through compositional analysis. These
researchers have been conducting a multi-year study to
characterize pipestone quarries in the Midwest, ranging
from Minnesota to Missouri to Ohio, using X-ray diffraction
and infrared spectroscopy. Their demonstrable success in
tying hundreds of pipes and effigies to their original quarry
sources is an impressive accomplishment.
Despite being visually distinct from each other, both
pipe fragments from Pig Point turned out to be clear
matches with the Fuert Hill Quarry in the Scioto Valley
about 5 miles north of what is today Portsmouth, Ohio (see
Figure 7). This quarry is located across the Scioto River
from the Hopewellian Tremper Mound and Earthworks, a
locality famous for its large number of killed platform effigy
pipes. Interestingly, most of these platform pipes were
ultimately determined to have been made of Illinois
pipestone. Obviously, complex trading and social
relationships are at work here, as is the case with the earlier
Adena tube pipes from Pig Point and elsewhere.
Over a half century ago, excavations on the banks
of the Rhode River produced Adena stone tube pipes (and
beads) virtually identical to those found at Pig Point seven
miles away (see Figure 8). These came from a ritual
context known as the West River Adena site (18AN19)
which has long been known as part of the Delmarva Adena
Complex extending across the Eastern Shore to Delaware
(Ford 1976). The presence of these objects in an apparently
domestic context at Pig Point will undoubtedly be the subject
of much future contemplation. Over many decades,
explanations of the Delmarva Adena phenomenon have
ranged from simple trade of objects into local systems,
through Midwestern trading parties physically seeking
Atlantic shell and fossil teeth, to the actual physical migration
of Midwestern groups.
Since the Scioto River Valley is a nucleus of
Adena/Hopewell activity, the fact that the Pig Point pipes
originated there is not a surprising result. Nonetheless, the
30
MARYLAND ARCHEOLOGY
FIGURE 7. Chemical signature of Fuert Hill Quarry pipestone (gray) and Pig Point stone tube pipe (black).
FIGURE 8. Stone tube pipes from the West River Adena
site.
confirmation that some of these exotic objects originated
at a specific quarry nearly 400 miles (and a mountain range)
away from their eventual deposition on the Patuxent River
in Anne Arundel County (Figure 9), is still an exciting
discovery.
References Cited
Ford, T. Latimer, Jr.
1975 Adena Sites on Chesapeake Bay. Archaeology of
Eastern North America 4:63-89.
FIGURE 9. Map showing the relative location of the Pig
Point site to the Fuert Hill Quarry.
Al Luckenbach is the Anne Arundel County Archaeologist and founder and director of the Anne Arundel County’s Lost Towns Project. He holds a doctoral degree in
Anthropology from the University of Kentucky. He can
be contacted through Anne Arundel County’s Office of
Planning and Zoning, Cultural Resources Division, 2664
Riva Road, Annapolis, Maryland 21401.